ChinaTalkAGI Believers: Kevin Roose on the Race
Kevin Roose, formerly of the New York Times and Hard Fork, joins ChinaTalk to discuss AGI Chronicles, his new history of OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind, and the people who believed in AGI long before it was cool and could make you trillions. Kevin is launching his own show, Machine Gods, later this October. We discuss… Why AGI was built on belief, not just money, GPUs, or talent, and how Google had every piece of the puzzle except the conviction. What drives Sam, Dario, and Demis, some of the most competitive people alive. Whether the Manhattan Project analogy holds, and why the government can’t just take the AI over from the scientists who built it. Why Dario is the most hawkish lab leader on China, and what may have changed during his time at Baidu. How Washington became the second most AI-pilled city in America, and why politicians fear the machine god for their own power. Whether people actually hate AI, and what recursive self-improvement in 2027 could mean for everyone else. Plus: Noam Shazeer’s “divine benevolence,” why Dario can’t lie to save his life, and Lenin singing the outtro music Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
